1/72 Anigrand MiG-31 Firefox

Gallery Article by Thomas Brückelt on Aug 21 2015

 

      

In 1982 the movie "Firefox" came out with Clint Eastwood as director and actor. Since I saw the movie I had the wish to have the shown fictional fighter, named MiG-31 Firefox, in my collection. Anigrand offers the Firefox in 1:144, 1:72 and 1:48 as resin kits. I ordered the 1:72-kit and made this old dream come true.

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The structures on the large parts look excellent. Some parts are very thin and must be treated very carefully, because the material is very fragile. There must be some rework on the parts to make them fit with sandpaper and putty. Especially in the area around the engines. I decided to show my model airborne. I made a display with a steel plate and a Ø2 mm carbon fibre rod.

There is just a simple seat for the cockpit, which looks more like one for a WW2-fighter than an ejection seat of a modern fighter. I built the whole cockpit from scratch and added a pilot-figure. Further I built the weapons bay. The kit does not include parts therefore, so I made all by my own. The missiles shown in the movie look like a mixture of AIM-9 Sidwinder (front) and R-60 / AA-8 Aphid (rear). I took missiles from my spare parts and combined them. Further I added the pitot tubes on the wings and the small "cones" on the front of the vertical stabilizers. I fit the canard-wings in the high speed position, as it can be seen in some movie scenes. That makes it looks faster.

The model was painted with brush and Email-colors from Revell. There were only the red stars as decals. After attaching them I sprayed silk, clear varnish over my Firefox.

I enjoyed very much making this model, because it was a little challenge and gave me the possibility for some individual modifications.

Greetings from Germany

Thomas Brückelt

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Photos and text © by Thomas Brückelt